Grave Reckoning: The Resurrectionist Papers, #1

By Lisa Silverthorne

Left for dead in a mass grave he awoke immortal.

Commanding rare magics. With no memory of who he is.

Solving crimes brings him closer to the truth.

 

Bounty Hunter, Greysen "Blade" Mallory can find anything—except his lost memories and missing past. Left for dead in a London mass grave in 1726, he awoke immortal with a command of rare magics but no manual.

 

When he's hired to pursue a bounty on the Oregon Coast, Greysen awakes to find a dead man and local police scouring his bungalow for clues. Including beautiful, eagle-eyed Detective Harlowe Keller who labels him a person of interest. Professionally and personally.

 

Forced to work together, Greysen and Keller search for a killer raising the dead all along the coast as a magical war rages between the self-absorbed goddess Hecate and the quirky god of Death. The killer has clues to the fabled resurrectionist papers, documents that may hold information about Greysen's past. As blood magic begins to appear in dangerous and public places, Greysen Mallory and Detective Keller wage their own war to stop the destruction.

 

Grave Reckoning is the first book in The Resurrectionist Papers, a romantic paranormal mystery/suspense series featuring immortal bounty hunter, Greysen Mallory and former army sniper, Detective Harlowe Keller who solve crimes despite a host of immortals warring for territory on the Oregon Coast.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elusive Blue Fiction
• Release date: Nov 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9781955197595

Lisa Silverthorne

LISA SILVERTHORNE has published five novels, two short story collections, and over 100 short stories in the fantasy, science fiction, romance, and mystery genres. With many more to follow. Her stories have appeared in publications from: DAW Books, Roc Books, Pulphouse Magazine, Fiction River, and Prime Books. For more information on Lisa’s novels and short fiction, please visit Lisa’s website at: LisaSilverthorne.com.

Book preview

1

The only bloody thing worse than being buried alive was reliving it. In flashbacks and nightmares. Like the one that just awoke me before dawn. Or maybe it was the gunshots? Great way for a bloke to start his first day hunting a bail jumper on the Oregon Coast. In a letted bungalow.

Gasping for breath, I snapped up from the bed in the dark, unfamiliar room, rubbing my eyes and mouth, trying to clear away the memory of cold dirt covering my face. Six feet of earth that had buried me alive in a mass grave.

I couldn’t remember anything before the resurrectionists dug me up that evening. But that one memory was branded in my head and it had a bad habit of hijacking my dreams. Like tonight. But with startling clarity this time.

The dream always started the same way.

Shick thump of a shovel moving soil in the cold darkness. The sound reverberated. Over and over.

It had been my first awareness that I still existed.

My next moment was a gasp for air. But icy, suffocating soil covered my face, filling my mouth. It clung to my eyes in heavy, cloying darkness. The weight of it was terrifying. And so were the tangle of dead bodies around me.

Stiff. Wintry. Clammy.

So many corpses!

Surrounding me like something out of a horror film. I could barely move, my limbs unresponsive, the ache in my neck horrific where deep rope burns throbbed from my throat to the back of my neck.

And I was drowning in dirt and bodies, clawing my way through the darkness when someone sodding grabbed hold of my arm. Pulling me out, onto the wet cobblestones by lantern light.

As the echo of horse hooves and carriage wheels rose through the dark city streets, I sprawled across the cobbles, coughing, and gagging. I threw up dirt and bile as I shivered in the rain in only my smallclothes, teeth chattering, bare limbs stiff and hardly functioning. The foul stench of death and dung clung to everything and I couldn’t escape from it.

Found us a live one, someone whispered in the darkness.

Half a dozen blokes with lanterns and torches surrounded me, shadowed by dark clothing and the night. They pushed three wooden trolleys, two stacked with greying, half-naked bodies, and one empty. I couldn’t see their faces. Or those of the dead on the trolleys.

The chaps dragged me across the cobblestones, the rain so cold against my skin, and tossed me onto the empty wooden trolley. The wind bit into my flesh, so frigid I thought I would turn to ice.

I tried to speak. Couldn’t.

How’d he survive a hanging? another voice asked. Hangman snapped his neck like a twig. I saw it.

’Twas witchcraft, that’s ‘ow! someone else whispered.

I saw it, too. ‘e was dead, ‘e was. Not breavin’. Not movin’. Even when they buried ‘im yesterday mornin’. Da tenth. Right ‘ere. In the church poor ‘ole wif all the other witches.

I couldn’t tell which of the six or seven blokes in dirty shirts and dark trousers spoke. They all had long, dark hair tied with leather cords at their napes and they spoke barely above whispers. They were resurrectionists, that much I knew, working in the dead of night. Digging up bodies to sell to London hospitals and physicians. At the time, I had no idea who they were or why they were out in London’s streets during second sleep, digging up bodies.

Much less why I was among those bodies. With mentions of hangings and witchcraft.

As far back as I could remember, there had been big gaps in this memory. Hazy. Out of focus. Most of it silhouettes, soil, and torchlight.

Until tonight.

Until tonight, I had no memory of their conversations. Or the fleeting, shadowy images, interspersed with painful, visceral memories of waking up in a mass grave that have haunted me ever since that night in 1726.

This time, I tried to speak to them, to ask who I was, where I came from, but only the rasp of tremendous pain came out. I couldn’t talk and I had no memory of being on a scaffold much less with a hangman’s noose around my neck.

Accused of performing magic—like a witch. Sod it all! I was no witch!

But the shock of the raw, horrendous ache in my neck terrified me. And the deep rope burns around my throat confirmed it. There had been a noose around my neck.

I couldn’t breathe for a moment.

And my neck had been broken.

I felt sick all over. Whoever I was or had been, someone thought I was a witch or a wizard. Or maybe something darker?

Had I been a criminal? Sentenced to be executed by hanging all those years ago?

But somehow, my fatal execution injury had…healed. How was that bloody possible? I’d been hung like a criminal on a scaffold. I died. They buried me. But somehow—my broken neck healed?

I tried to get a look at these chaps, but the pain in my neck was substantial. I could barely turn my head. Besides, the rain and the dark and the fog made it impossible to see them in the dim light.

Looks like ‘e was young, too. Eighteen accordin’ to the execution record, said one of the blokes. Poor sod. Today’s ‘is eighteenth birthday. ‘elluva way ta spend it.

Rotten luck that.

Well, ’e looks young enough, all fair-haired and lean, but ’ow do you know all that?

There’s a number 11 still smudged on ‘is forehead. It’s ‘is execution number. We already dug up a dozen or so with those numbers tonight. All witches they was. The crown done executed a big lot o’ witches yesterday. Didn’t you read the notices? Was posted all over London they was. That’s why we ‘ad such a big turnout tonight. Blokes eager to dig up bodies ta sell ta da ‘ospital. Lots a coin made tonight, mates.

Bloody ‘ell, another voice cursed. Not for this one. Can’t exactly sell ‘is body to the ‘ospital now, can we?

Why not? Parts is parts. ‘is are just—fresher. That’s all.

Shut yer gob. Resurrectionists ‘ave some standards. Ya don’t sell a body still breathin’.

’e got a name? Maybe we can ransom ‘im back to ‘is family?

Can’t make it out. Ink’s smudged. First name’s…Greysen. That’s all I can make out.

Whot we gonna do wif ‘im then? Draft ‘im into the resurrectionists?

Whot about da crimpers?

Now yer thinkin’. A few coins is better’n none, aye?

I grabbed hold of one of the chap’s sleeves.

Help—me…please, I said in a raspy whisper.

It was so hard to speak.

The bloke pulled away, pointing at me, and crossing himself.

’ave a look at those eyes, will ya? They’re…glowin’ violet! They was right about this one. ‘e is a witch!

One of the other chaps bent toward me with a lantern. The one that had pointed out the number smudged across my forehead. He tilted the lamp toward my face.

Would ya look at that? ‘e does have witch eyes. Crimpers gonna love this one.

Why’s that, Nigel?

Wif those eyes, no one’ll mess wif ‘im. Besides, ‘e’s young and obviously immortal. Just gotta get ‘im on ‘is feet first. Get fifty quid more for immortals.

Immortal? At the time, my brain couldn’t wrap around that concept. But I’d just lived through a hanging and being buried alive (and couldn’t remember either event).

’ow we gonna do that?

We’ll take ‘im back to da pub first. Get some food and ale into ‘im. Get ‘im some clothes. Tad won’t turn ‘im down as long as ‘e can run a jib. Or ‘oist a sail. ‘specially when ‘e finds out the kid’s immortal.

I had no idea who I was or what I’d done. Or why the crown thought I was a sodding wizard and executed me for it. Much less how I was still alive after being hanged and buried. I only knew my first name was Greysen, I had violet eyes, and I’d just turned eighteen at the time. And the day that they found me, the eleventh, was, apparently, my birthday.

It had been October 11, 1726. I already knew the year, but this flashback had given me the month and the day, something I hadn’t known until now.

Right after that, the resurrectionists snuffed out their torches and carted me through London’s frosty streets. To the back room of some dark, noisy pub that smelled like cod, flat ale, and piss. Where they forced ale laced with laudanum into me until I passed out.

Four days later, I woke up aboard the schooner, Angry Widow after the resurrectionists had sold me to crimpers. The Angry Widow had been bound for Haiti until I picked up the first mate’s pipe that had fallen on the deck and told him he’d be dead by morning. After falling from one of the sails.

I’d felt it when I touched his dropped pipe. Saw it. Life and death imprinted on cherished objects and somehow, I could see those imprints. Read them.

No, it was more than that. I could suddenly reach out and touch that object’s time period. Travel there and back again.

It was a strange magical gift that had grown more powerful as time passed. I had no idea where it came from or how to use it, but it had been with me ever since that misty October night in London when I awoke in a mass grave. On my birthday.

Maybe this gift had gotten me hanged as a witch?

When the first mate plunged to his death from the main sail the next morning, the Angry Widow diverted course, putting into port at New York a day later.

And dumped me there.

As I said, it was the year 1726. All in all, it had been exactly 30 days since I’d awoken in that mass grave. Marking my birthday as October eleventh. Until tonight, I’d never seen or heard any dates in these dreams before.

I had a real birthdate—at last. After nearly 300 years.

Crimpers and resurrectionists gave me the last name Mallory. A surname they gave to unfortunates without names that they shanghaied and sold to ship’s crews. It meant bad luck and the crew of the Angry Widow would have agreed.

And maybe they were right?

I had this strange magic I didn’t understand, couldn’t control, and had no clue how I got it. But it helped me find things. Made me a damned good bounty hunter. I could find anything—except my own past. It was just snippets of bloody memories that taunted me in my dreams. And last night’s had given me more than I’d recalled in centuries.

The knock at the front door startled me into the present.

Empress meowed and stretched, floating a foot above the bed, her long ghost fur speckled black, cream, and red tortoiseshell. She was the reason the Angry Widow’s first mate fell off the main sail. No one knew where the fluffy tortoiseshell ghost cat had come from, but she took a liking to me and followed me off the ship to America.

And I’d been back and forth from England to America ever since.

The knock became insistent as I grabbed a pair of blue joggers and pulled them on over my black boxer briefs. My light blond hair was disheveled as I passed the hallway mirror lit by the red and blue flash of police lights as I moved toward the front door.

A fist pounded the door now. Shaking it. Hard.

Andy? I muttered. About bloody time you got here.

But the muffled voice beyond the door didn’t belong to Andy Keane, the bail jumper I’d been hired to hunt. Which had turned into me trying to help him disappear. Bloke had been terrified when I spoke with him at the Portland airport. And not about jumping bail.

About something supernatural.

Oregon State Police, a loud voice shouted from outside. Open this door! Now!

Oregon State Police? I’d only gotten into my letted bungalow a short while ago.

I glanced behind me at the microwave clock as I reached for the doorknob. It was four thirty-one in the bloody morning—I’d been here an hour. Like I was just sitting around waiting for rozzers to show up. Instead of sleeping.

I jerked open the door and almost got a truncheon in the face.

Four uniformed cops surrounded the threshold, but I stared past them. At the body being photographed about ten feet from my doorstep. The surf roared about two hundred feet away, wind whipping sand and rain into my face.

Sir, step outside please, said a stocky cop with a bushy dark mustache and a hand on the gun at his belt.

A nervous hand. Knuckles turning white.

I hated guns. Never carried one. I preferred a short sword or a dagger—a machete even. Anything with a blade. That’s how I got the nickname Blade. Without a real last name to attach to Greysen or a past to go with it, I became Blade Mallory, bounty hunter.

Bloody hell, I said and held my hands up in front of me. Don’t get anxious with those guns. I’m coming out.

It was bloody cold and I was barefoot with no shirt on, without my Wellies and Macintosh, but I was afraid these cops would heat things up with those guns at any moment after finding a body in my front garden. And apparently, deciding that I was the one that killed whoever it was. I saw that look in their beady eyes.

Your name, sir, the rozzer with the baton demanded. And identification. I’ll need your passport.

Mallory, I answered, trying my damnedest not to make any sudden moves. Greysen Mallory. And I’m afraid my wallet’s inside on the chest of drawers.

Then I felt Empress rubbing back and forth against my legs. Nervous. She hissed and swiped at the cops surrounding me, a low feral growl rumbling, fur puffed up.

The baton cop motioned toward another nervous-looking cop. Like I’d just slain a whole sodding police department one town over.

Go get it. He turned back to me. Vacationing here, Mr. Mallory? From Great Britain?

I frowned. I’d been in this country since 1726, thank you. Rather permanent at this point. Even though I also had a flat in London and spent a lot of time there, too.

But being immortal complicated paperwork.

Every sixty years or so, I had to work with a specialist to fix my identity. Become my heir who inherited my own property. And it got harder as the technology advanced. But right now, I had dual citizenship, a New York birth certificate, and a New York driver’s license, putting me at about 23. I looked almost that age even though I was over 300 years old. Next time, now that I knew my real birthday thanks to last night’s dreams, I’d use it.

New York, I replied in my thick British accent.

The cop frowned. New York? But the British accent—

Was born in New York but live in London part of the year.

The cop walked out of my bungalow, carrying my old brown leather wallet. He handed it to the baton cop. I had 20 quid in there. If it got nicked, there’d be trouble. Uniform or not.

Normally, I contacted the local police whenever I worked a job. I’d intended to call them today before I started hunting Andy Keane. Until my New Jersey bail jumper contacted me, asking for help. But the dead body in my front garden had derailed that plan rather handsomely.

The baton cop opened my wallet and kept glancing from my driver’s license to me and back again.

That’s him, said baton cop, slapping my wallet closed.

Like he was judge and jury. Of course, who else’s picture would be on my sodding license? Prince William?

I frowned. Excuse me?

Baton cop pointed behind him toward the dead body and advanced toward me. But the cop that had nicked my wallet off the chest of drawers was suddenly behind me, pulling my arms behind my back, cuffing my hands. Like it was my bloody fault that some tourist got merked by a rogue wave on the beach.

What are you doing? I snapped, glaring at baton cop.

Afraid you’ll need to come down to the station and answer some questions, Mr. Mallory.

Are you charging me with something? I demanded, glaring at the cop.

Somebody get Detective Keller over here to handle this, Baton cop said into the radio on his belt.

You’d bloody well better read me my rights or cut me loose, I said with a growl. Otherwise, my barrister will read you a declaration for a very large claim, er, lawsuit.

But my anger disappeared along with every thought in my head when Detective Keller stepped around the other cops like a gathering storm and stopped in front of me.

She wore a purple leather motorbike jacket, black form-fitting T-shirt, and black trousers that hugged her long legs. Her hair was a lengthy, thick sable braid that hung down her back, big, smoky light blue eyes piercing as she stared at me, a gold detective badge fastened to the bottom of her jacket. With those black pumps on, she was about five-foot-ten to my six-foot-two height.

The wind carried her intoxicating scent of warm jasmine and cool musk and I wanted to drown in it as I felt the electricity in the air. Felt the heat of her presence.

Suddenly, I didn’t mind going to the station.

I couldn’t stop the smile that had obliterated my tough bloke’s mask. Bollocks.

Regardless, Detective Keller could interrogate me all she wanted.

Empress rubbed against my legs again and I felt her rumbling purr this time against my gooseflesh as the wind sharpened across my bare chest. She seemed to like this detective.

Greysen Mallory, said the female detective with a stony expression and emotionless but smoky tone, her eyes like blue flames in the wash of police lights as she stared unblinking at me. I’m Detective Harlowe Keller with the Oregon State Police.

Her alto voice was warm like cinnamon. Sharp like a Bowie knife. She squinted at me, that piercing blue stare feeling like a deep scan. Like she was strip-searching me.

Like that was difficult. I was barefoot in a thin blue pair of joggers. Even my mobile was back on the chest of drawers, my trainers beside it. And my boots.

Planning to read me my rights, detective? I asked. I’d like to call my barrister and find out what I’m being charged with. And maybe have him bring me a jumper and my trainers. It’s cold as bollocks on the coast.

The corners of her mouth lifted, her pupils widening as she kept staring at me. I hoped she liked more than just the view of the ocean behind me.

It’s the wind off the ocean, she said in a quiet voice, motioning behind me. Makes it—cold as…bollocks.

Her deadpan delivery of bollocks made me smile again, almost forgetting I was about to be arrested for murder.

All right, Smitty, said the beautiful Detective Keller, that long sable braid falling over her left shoulder as she turned toward Smitty the baton cop. Let’s get Mr. Mallory down to the station for questioning and the victim to the morgue. Search every inch of this bungalow.

Please don’t mix up those orders, Smitty, I replied as two cops yanked me across the icy, sandy ground toward a state police car. I’ve already had a bad night. Let’s not bugger the rest of it by dropping me off at the morgue instead of the station.

For a brief moment, Detective Harlowe Keller’s stony cop façade faded into a laugh as she turned toward my letted bungalow. To tear through all my belongings. Look for a murder weapon. See if I was a cross-dresser or slept with a teddy bear. Something to leak to TikTok or whisper to the barman who then posts it to TikTok. That kind of fun with cops.

I’d already had enough fun with them for lifetimes. And that included a rather smashing evening on the gallows with constables, followed by a blackout without the drunk, and waking up in a mass grave. Quite the party that I hadn’t enjoyed one bit.

The two cops shoved me into the back seat.

I smacked my forehead against the top of the doorframe and faceplanted into the seat. The pain throbbed hot against my fevered brain and I felt a trickle of blood into my hair as the rozzers piled into the front seat. The car squealed onto the dark motorway and headed into the night toward some isolated state police post. Where they could beat a confession out of me with no tourists watching.

At least they couldn’t kill me. But they could make me wish I were dead. I may be immortal, but I bled, bruised, and broke like mortals. It hurt like hell and then it healed.

Like my broken neck.

I hoped they found something interesting at my letted bungalow, something about me that even I didn’t know. And maybe they could even decipher the strange book someone had tucked into my rucksack in that London pub long ago—or was it aboard the Angry Widow? After centuries, I could only read one page that referenced something called shadowmancy, whatever that was.

One of the pages glowed red when I first touched it and then I felt wisps of a power awaken in me. Like the first line of a song I couldn’t remember the rest of. Wouldn’t the cops lose their little blue minds over witnessing that? Or learning that I was immortal?

How would Detective Harlowe Keller handle that news?

I sighed and slumped against the cold, fogged-up window, my hands and fingers growing numb from these damned cuffs. This was the worst bounty hunt I’d ever worked and this one hadn’t even started yet.

2

The sky was getting light by the time the Oregon State Police dragged me into the state police post at Newport, nearly forty minutes away. The squat grey building with windows facing the highway and the coast looked like it was a house of some kind. The car park was small and had been given a fresh covering of asphalt, the warm sulfury smell still hanging above the salt air. In the predawn darkness, the cops didn’t mind shoving me around a bit before hustling me inside into an austere interrogation room at the back of the building.

And left me there for what felt like hours.

At least they had the decency to remove those damned cuffs from my wrists.

Grey walls, grey ceramic tile, and a bare lightbulb above a black square table. Two metal chairs. And no windows. Just a large one-way mirror on the back wall.

Like I didn’t know they were watching everything I did. So certain that I’d killed whoever was lying dead in the front garden of my letted beach bungalow.

I distinctly recall telling the letting agency that I wanted an unobstructed view of the ocean and absolutely no dead bodies in the front garden. I was working for God’s sake and didn’t need another case to solve while dealing with Andy Keane. Who hadn’t shown up. Poor bloke had been terrified. Probably still in hiding and blowing up my mobile right now to come find him.

The room was cold and smelled like bleach and pine needles. Like someone was trying to erase Christmas. Which was about five weeks away. These rozzers didn’t seem like the holiday type to me anyway. Probably hated candy canes and reindeer, too. Taking the piss out of the entire holiday.

Well, I wasn’t about to wrap up a nice, neat little confession for them. I had no idea who that dead bloke in the sand was or why he or she chose to die at my holiday bungalow.

My forehead still ached and I felt the blood drying against the side of my face. A minor injury. And I knew that within the hour, the wound would heal itself. The deeper the wound, the longer it took to heal, of course. An interesting aspect of my unexplained immortality.

I padded across the frosty tiles and stared into the one-way mirror, a hand against the side of my face. Hoping my glare was centimeters away from some bloody inspector’s face.

Bet they told you I got this for obstruction, I said, squinting as I pointed at the blood on the side of my face. Wrong. I got it for being six-two around insecure five-eight cops.

I crossed my arms against my chest, feeling the first stages of hypothermia setting in. I held out my arms, turning in a circle.

It’s monkeys in here! Bloody freezing! Anyone got a parka on hand? Some Wellies? A tauntaun? No?

When no one responded, I turned and walked away, back toward the icy metal chair to huddle under the bare lightbulb’s warmth. November at the bloody Oregon coast was cold as bollocks.

Fine, I snapped and sat down. Don’t blame me when you have another body on your hands. I’ll just freeze to death quietly beneath this bulb and dream of the Caribbean. Unless we can get this Antarctic interrogation over already! Or give me my one bloody phone call and I’ll call Amazon and have an electric heater delivered.

At last, the door into the interrogation room opened and Detective Harlowe Keller sauntered inside. Smiling. She carried a large manila envelope in one hand.

Five stars, Mr. Mallory. This police post already voted your interrogation as their favorite of 2023. Unless you have more closing remarks, another monologue, we can get this over with as quickly as possible.

She sat down at the table across from me.

Am I being charged? I asked, leaning across the table toward her.

The detective gave me that noncommittal look, looking all warm and cozy in her purple leather jacket.

Am I being detained?

Again, she was silent.

I snapped up from the chair. Well, unless you’re charging or detaining me, I think we’re done here.

The detective was on her feet now. She reached out and gripped my bare arm. Her fingers were hot enough to sting. They sent a burst of heat through my body, almost stopping the chattering of my teeth.

Mr. Mallory, she said in a quiet voice. Greysen. I have questions that I need to ask you. A man was murdered in front of your bungalow. You know we have to question you about it. She motioned toward the chair. Please. Sit.

The forthrightness of her tone and her honest delivery momentarily halted the smart-arse in me. Along with her polite courtesy.

Sighing, I turned back toward the chair and sat down. We exchanged a few awkward glances.

I ran a check on you, Mr. Mallory. Greysen. You’re a bounty hunter by profession, correct?

I nodded. Licensed in four states including New York. But I also own a small antique shop in upstate New York. Lost Time Antiques.

Except that I had moved it to the internet. Being immortal gave me an edge in the antiques business. I had a huge storage facility filled with antiques. It paid the bills when bounty hunting didn’t. But not nearly as much fun.

Are you aware that bounty hunting in Oregon is prohibited? Apprehending fugitives from other states and taking them across state lines is considered kidnapping.

The detective’s words cut through me like a knife blade. I’d been set up. But I couldn’t let this eagle-eyed detective know that.

Detective, I’m on holiday, not hunting bounties, I countered, studying Detective Keller’s expression.

Then why did fugitive Andy Keane, the bounty you were hired to hunt, turn up dead in front of your rented bungalow, Mr. Mallory? With an email from you still open on his phone.

This time, I couldn’t hold back my shock.

The dead man was Andy Keane? I asked.

No…not Andy. He was guilty of poor judgment at most. And he certainly hadn’t deserved to be murdered for it.

Yes, Mr. Mallory.

She stared at me for a moment or two, letting that little news flash settle into my sleep-starved brain.

That makes you a person of interest in this case.

Bugger. Checkmate. Someone set me up big time. To take the fall for a murder rap, one I didn’t commit. Who wanted Andy Keane dead? And me convicted of his murder? I had to figure that out fast. Life in prison would be a long stint for an immortal.

I had to start with the bail bondsman who called and hired me to hunt down Keane in the first place and bring him back to New Jersey for trial. Brian Beckerman. Beckerman probably thought I’d blunder right into a kidnapping and confinement charge at the very least. Murder charges at the worst. I’d never met the man, but in my book, he was a real knobber. He was the one who told me that Andy had fled to Oregon. Had he wanted Andy Keane dead? If so, why?

Bet he never expected me to befriend Andy Keane and try to help him either.

Did you hear what I said, Mr. Mallory? said the detective in her warm cinnamon voice, smelling like warm jasmine and cool musk. You’re a person of interest in the case, but you haven’t been officially charged with a crime. Yet.

I returned my attention to the detective. Beautiful, coal-black hair in a thick braid down her back. Big blue eyes. A body that shamed that purple leather motorbike jacket she wore. She was positively heart-stopping.

But she didn’t need to know that I’d met with Andy Keane yesterday.

I may be many things, Detective Keller, but I am not a murderer. I didn’t kill Andy Keane, but I’ll find out who did.

Don’t leave town, Mr. Mallory, said Detective Keller, rising from the hard metal chair. We’ll be in touch.

I’m sure you will, I snapped and got to my bare feet. I pointed to the wound on my forehead. I just hope it doesn’t hurt as bad as this next time.

This time, she looked genuinely concerned.

I’m sorry about that, she said. Sometimes, our officers get a bit…overzealous. I’ll remind them that people are still innocent until proven guilty. She squinted at me. You should see a doctor for that—it might need stitches. There’s a twenty-four-hour urgent care here in Newport. I’d be happy to drive you there and take care of the cost.

Would someone be happy to drive me back to my bungalow instead? Since I have no wallet, no mobile, and no trainers.

Of course, she said, nodding, and motioned me toward the